I've been back from Korea for a week now and I never thought I'd say this: I miss Korean food! The food was amazing and although eating too much caused a sore throat which eventually became a flu, I have wonderful memories of the fresh and delicious food in Korea.
For now, I'd like to talk about the snack food we had while we were there.
Click the card above to see the full image.
The hotel we stayed at near Ewha Women's University, Cozybox was above a Dear Bread outlet so we were curious to see what Korean bread and pastries were like.
To my surprise, they were selling Canele(s), a French pastry that is featured in an anime that I just finished watching, Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso - a highly recommended Japanese animation by the way, no animation has toyed with my emotions 24 episodes straight.
Ahem. Back to the canele. The canele has a thick caramelized crust which gives you a chewy bite on the outside.
The inside is an eggy, spongy center with a touch of rum making it a sinful and creamy alcoholic treat. Now where do I find these in KL?
We also had the chance to visit the picturesque Nami Island in Chuncheon where Winter Sonata was filmed. I never watched Winter Sonata but the ginkgo and maple trees are reason enough to visit Nami Island. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.
If you're lucky, you'll come across a chipmunk. Just don't get all excited like me and run screaming after them.
Near the snack shack, a couple of ducks will wander around hoping for a bite or two.
You'll smell the barbecue from afar and be tempted to try a Nami Island sausage.
They're freshly barbecued on a coal grill.
Help yourselves to the sauces available and you get a delicious, juicy snack while walking through the beautiful trees.
To tempt you further, there's soft serve ice-cream in 3 flavors.
True to the photo, it's really that high. It's more ice than cream though.
You'll see many shacks like these throughout Korea and this is what they sell:
Red bean pau. The pau are steamed in metal domes on a wood fire.
It's more bread than filling.
But, the filling is thick and fragrant. There's something about Korean red beans that are much tastier than Malaysian ones.
Here are 2 more photos of the beautiful Nami Island. Do consider visiting this island. Even if it seems like a tourist trap, you'll find that there are more locals than foreigners.
Moving on to convenience store foods, our must have while in Seoul were bottles and bottles of banana milk.
A little sweet but affordable and satisfying, the banana milk here has a fresh flavor without the taste of artificial banana flavoring.
I decided to try a packet drink which comes with a cup of ice for 1500 won. Koreans seem to love iced drinks even in the cold weather.
This particular peach drink had little translucent pearl bubbles that pop with a burst of peach syrup. It was more sour than sweet - we realized that most drinks in Korea were like that - something Malaysian drink manufacturers should consider adopting.
One item that I see tourists cart home is this - the Market-o Brownie. I had to remove all of mine from the box because the box was too bulky.
This fudgy, chocolaty treat is available at any convenience store in Seoul. It's almost as if this is Korea's official snack.
For a mass-produced, commercial brownie, it's pretty good. A small brownie (look at it's size against my thumb) with lots of chocolate.
There's even chocolate chips for you to nibble on.
There's a variation, the brownie blondie which I ate at Nami Island and forgot to take photos of.
The blondie has a strong vanilla flavor which goes well with the chocolate but I found the combination too sweet for my liking.
The next post I'll be sharing will include directions on how to get to the restaurants, where we stayed (because this is worth sharing!) and directions to some points of interest.
Till then!